18th April, 2001.

Had a meeting this morning with a couple of colleagues, and we swapped theories about the following (roughly based on data from the Christian Research Association: their new CD on religion in Australia is supposed to be a better summary than any comparable effort in any other country. I’ve been playing around with it today).

1. Sunday attenders (in numerical order, from largest to less…): Catholics (30-40% of all Catholics on any given Sunday), Pentecostals (75%), Anglicans (9%), Baptists (55%), Uniting (30%). Baptists passed the Uniting Churches in the last year or so. In 1996 about 60,000 people attended Uniting Churches each Sunday. Optimistically, if present trends continue, within 15 years it will be down to 12,000.

2. Monthly Attendance (total of different persons): Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Uniting Churches, Baptists.

3. Total of different persons attending some time in a given year: Catholics, Anglicans, Uniting Church…

4. Percentage of Church members who are graduates (from highest): SDA’s (yes!), Baptists, Anglican, Uniting.

5. The Anglican Church in Australia now has about 350 women priests.

Waddaya make of all that?

Rowland Croucher

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